Mac.LTL

So, I purchased a wireless Apple Mighty Mouse last week and was severely disappointed. I purchased an external mouse for my MacBook because I’ve started writing software again and the trackpad is usable but too slow. Performance is my main driver and I was not prepared to be so underwhelmed (i.e. pissed off).

The mouse response felt sluggish and unnatural. When trying to be precise it felt sticky and jerky. I first thought the bluetooth was a lame interface and the source of my issues, but that was not the case. It was my second suspicion that was confirmed… the problem lies with the mouse acceleration curve (it’s software, it’s in an OS X driver setting, and it can be easily fixed by Apple). But, alas, OS X has no setting for acceleration and apparently has not had one for a long time. The cause and some solutions to the problems of the “feel” of the mouse in OS X has been well described. Read the article, it’s a great overview.

So how do we fix this feeling like our mousepad is a piece of fly paper? Well, my suggestion is to download MouseFix 1.2, a free program by Richard Bently. Why do you want this solution? First, because it’s free. Second, because in version 1.2 someone copied the acceleration parameters from Windows! Get it, run it, it’s great. I suggest setting the acceleration factor command line parameter to 1.8 (the default is 2)… so run it like:

./MouseFix 1.8

After that, play with your tracking speed for your mouse to dial in what feels good. If you are on a laptop, you’ll probably also need to decrease the tracking speed of your trackpad to dial it in. At first you may not like the new feel because you have spent years and years as an unsatisfied user who has eventually gotten used to crap. But after a short period you’ll find it’s much better, even the trackpad is much nicer to use after the fix.

Have fun actually being able to click on things now!

Oh, and as a final rant, why is this issue so infuriating. Because I spent $70 for a mouse… just because it matches my laptop! For double to triple what a good mouse should cost I expect perfection, or at least something pleasurable and effective to use. Yes, this was not a hardware problem, but since Apple controls the whole ecosystem the software that integrates the hardware should be perfect. And anyway, the hardware isn’t even that nice… the “squeeze” feature requires a hard squeeze that is uncomfortable, I sometimes miss-click the left vs right buttons, the ergonomics aren’t that great, and the features that work well are no better than any other $15 mouse. I hate that I am now bought into Apple and form comes before function… except for my iPhone, few complaints over that!

I recently had a terrible experience with AT&T getting internet at my new apartment. I was interested in getting internet as quickly as possible and they just happened to be the first people I was able to get in contact with. I called AT&T. I ended up getting their most expensive internet service and a cheap land line. I was told my phone line would be active by Thursday and my DSL modem would arrive by Friday. I purchase a phone and plug it in on Thursday and I get no dial tone. I call AT&T on Friday at 5:00PM and they tell me my line is active and I should try it again and that my DSL modem could still arrive in the next three hours. They tell me their call center is open for another hour after that. (Experience getting transfered around on the phone and giving the same information several times was frustrating. I was told their was a 24 hour tech support I could have called, but apparently when I called back at 8:05 they weren’t open.) So anyway, I check my phone again and I don’t have a dial tone. Not receiving my DSL modem, I called back and couldn’t get in touch with anyone.

This is when I got a little frustrated. When I don’t have internet, I can’t get work done and I don’t have any entertainment. I spent the evenings playing single player video games and staying afloat with my iPhone.

So that very night I ended up getting in touch with Astound. They were incredibly responsive. They told me they could have a tech out by Monday to install everything for me. Considering there was a weekend and they were getting me this in shorter time than AT&T, I was quite pleased with that. Moreover, they had much better options for getting a cable modem. They came out and set everything up that Monday perfect. I came home from work and had internet. Ran a speed test and everything was just as it should be.

But back to AT&T. Now that I had found a solution with Astound, I had to call and cancel service with AT&T. They put me through to some “customer retention department” or something. I explained I wanted to cancel my service. They asked why and I explained it was because I wasn’t getting any service. (It’s not my intention to hassle these poor phone operators, so please don’t misunderstand my tone. It was very calm and constructive.) The young lady offered me a month of free service or something like that. I explained that the cost wasn’t the issue and I would gladly pay $100 a month of I could be certain I would receive reliable service. I told her I would like to cancel everything unless she could somehow guarantee that my future experiences with customer service would be responsive and ultimately satisfactory. She agreed to continue with canceling my order. She then proceeded to tell me I would be charged $40 for AT&T activating the line. I had to explain to her several times my unwillingness to pay because I never got a dial tone and did not want to pay for service that I never received. She told me there was some sort of FCC thing that said they had to. I’m certain she didn’t know what she was talking about.

She ended up sending me to a supervisor, but as that was going on, she told me her supervisor had noticed that charge was waved for me when I first ordered the service. So this wasn’t even an issue. I did end up speaking with the supervisor, but she was incredibly rude and self-righteous. In speaking with her, all I wanted to do was to confirm the situation and ensure I would be receiving no charge. Even when I tried to repeat what she had just told me to make sure I understood, she would interrupt.

And here’s the other thing, the DSL modem ended up arriving late. They told me to just refuse to accept it when it arrived so it would be returned to them. It did not arrive on Saturday as they had told me it should, since it didn’t arrive on Friday.

I really am annoyed enough with AT&T to want to ditch them on my cell phone. If I weren’t locked into AT&T with my iPhone… ugh…

But much thanks to Astound. I can’t speak for all customers and I don’t know them very well as a company. But I had a very positive experience with them thus far and wanted to note that.

My iPhone broke again and I had to do a restore. It was the most peculiar experience. I plug my iPhone in to sync and charge it and I notice that my videos and music are being listed as other. (As you can see from the pics.) I immediately check and I can’t find any music or videos on my iPhone. So I unplug it and plug it back in and I get the same thing. Frustrating. Still looking forward to the 2.0 update, though.

MacMage has released a great little app called Cents, which provides a super convenient and quick way to keep track of how much money one is spending.

From the Cents website: “We never realize how much we spend on the little things in life… but it all adds up. This pocket app will help you keep track of your little spendings and show you how much you’ve spent.”

Check it out!  Requires Leopard, $4.99.

I installed the latest version of ZiPhone to jail break my iPhone. I installed several apps and everything was working pretty well. I was enjoying Tap Tap Revolution. After installing a terminal application, my iPhone ran into a slight problem…

(Sorry the video stalls a bit.)

So, you have an Intel Mac and want the best of both worlds.
Sure, you can use Boot Camp, if you don’t mind restarting your computer when
you need Windows. Now for myself, I did try Boot Camp with Windows XP,
but then it also wanted updates, and I was not able to go online via
Windows, so that is where my experiment stopped. Then I had heard of
trying a demo copy of Parallels from their website, so I gave that a
try. Parallels did the trick! I was able to get online, I did not have
to do anything. Plug and Play, that’s for me. This is why I own a Mac,
right? So, if you have a need to run Windows along side the Apple OS,
this could do the trick. Be aware that this will also be sucking up
your RAM, and Windows may also want updates, so no bootlegs kiddies!
So, you are looking at the cost of Parallels along with the cost of a Windows disk.
I only tried out XP, so I can not say what fun Vista may bring.
I did also use the Windows version of Yahoo messenger while trying out Parallels, and that was much more fun then the Mac version. I then tried a web cam, but did not get too far on that. So, if you need two worlds in one computer, this can be a solution.

Alright, here’s something kind of nice about Windows XP. I’m sure it’s happened to every Mac user at least once. You mistakenly open several documents launching twenty different applications. Although Vista is plagued with annoying alerts and irrelevant messages, this is one of the few that should be in Mac OS X.